Revival
by Cookie-Lollie
Summary: Everyone depended on him when he became the last thing preventing them from losing the war. They drew strength from him when all else seemed lost. To them, he was their shining beacon of hope. But there's a breaking point for everyone, and Naruto had finally reached his own. He may not hold any hope anymore, but he still has the resolve to see things through.
1. One More Chance

War was merciless and brutal. It was all-consuming and left no one unscathed. It brought out the best in men who were meant to be great and the worst in most of everyone else. People saw everything only in black and white if only to spare themselves the trouble and anguish of looking further beyond. There are no winners or losers but survivors who come out of it with scars on their bodies to remind them of their deeds for life, and new demons that come to light in the darkness of their minds.

The soil is soaked red with blood and the grass burned to dust by the clashing of weapons, battle cries of men spilled the blood of the dead. Villages are razed to the ground, pillaged by scavengers and deserters who harvest the farms and slaughter the livestock to fill own bellies rather than the villagers. Bandits kill the husbands while their wives and children are tortured and raped to sate the perverted desires and fetishes of bandits. Some are killed to satisfy their battle craze, and others are tortured to calm their bloodlust. The unlucky few are sold into slavery once they reach beyond the border.

Men are forcibly enlisted to join the war, to become cannon fodder in a war they want to part in, to damn their families to poverty and suffering. _For the greater good_ , they said when they weren't the ones who were forced to fight in a war over pride and greed. Women have little choice but to sell their bodies to feed themselves and their children. The selfish abandon their children, unwilling to put up with the burden of feeding extra mouths when they know their husband won't come back. Children are thrown out on the streets to fend for themselves and resort to dumpster diving, thievery, and pick-pocketing to survive. Some band together to form the illusion of strength with numbers to rob the rich.

The people who fight in war have their body and mind poisoned alike. Great men and cowards alike are born out of the war for they are two sides of the same coin. Through war, great men are born out of the desire to end it once and for all, to improve the standards of living for their people, to see through it spilled blood no longer. At the same time, cowards are born, men who choose to take the easy way out and abandon their morals for the sake of living to see another day; fearful of all things painful and harsh, unwilling to live through hardship and suffering.

War brings the best and worst out of people. Some fight in a war to protect their families and for those who cannot. Others give their lives up to ensure their families a better future. Most, however, would sacrifice others if it meant they could continue to live in the lap of luxury. Many would trip the person behind them if it meant they would gain something out of it in some way or form. War strips people of their exterior appearances and gives way to the beauty of the soul or the lack thereof.

There is to justification to war for it's a tragedy in itself. The end of the war doesn't equate to the beginning of peace. It's merely a stall for time until the next war. With each war comes a wave of hate, for it's far easier to hate than it is to love. The cycle of hate thus restarted by the first of spilled blood never ceases to exist so long as people continue to hate and clash against each other.

The Fourth Great Shinobi War was a fool's war. Those who fought in it died in vain yet were envied by the remaining survivors. The deceased were resting in peace, undisturbed by the calamity that was Madara and later, Kaguya. No longer did they experience pain and suffering, fear and despair, emptiness and utter hopelessness. Dying wasn't an option for the survivors when they managed to survive for so long. It would be an insult to those who died so that they could live for even a day longer.

One by one, the people he cherished from the beginning, and the people he grew to care for left him alone eventually. Kaguya could track them down if they stayed in one location for too long, so they were always on the move. White Zetsu were always on their trail as well. With practically the world against them, the survivors were always either sleep-deprived, hungry, chakra-exhausted, injured, or all of the above. The White Zetsu tended to target survivors that weren't from Konoha and the only explanation he could think of what that Black Zetsu and White Zetsu wanted to make him suffer and save the "best" for last, namely his friends.

Iruka, Omoi, and Tsume were the first among them to die, buying time for everyone else to escape. Darui took on five White Zetsu to protect them when they were exhausted and drained of chakra to do any damage. Mei, Chojuro, C, Omoi, and Samui teamed up to fight Kaguya when they lingered in the Land of Hot Springs so that Tsunade, Shizune, and Sakura could heal serious injuries. Hinata died of chakra exhaustion while Kiba and Shino died from blood loss and the shock of losing his entire colony respectively. Kurenai went into labor but died halfway through the cesarean section, as did her unborn baby. Tenten bodily shielded Lee, out of commission after opening five of the Gates, from a wooden pike and Lee later died from internal bleeding and brain hemorrhage. Kankuro and Temari made Sakura drain them dry of chakra so that she could heal Gaara from the brink of death. Konohamaru bit his tongue when White Zetsu attempted to hold him hostage to kill off the stronger and abler survivors. Gai, A, Choji, and Shizune grew infections from their wounds and made everyone leave them behind. Gai opened the sixth gate and took on thirty White Zetsu. Sakura and Tsunade died trying to heal Kurotsuchi.

The last remaining survivors were Kakashi, Gaara, Sasuke, Shikamaru, Sai, and Genma. The Fourth Great Shinobi War lasted a year and a half, and the survivors knew it would be coming to an end soon. They just barely managed to survive Kaguya and her army of White Zetsu from completely wiping them out. They only needed to wait for another hour until the stars fully aligned with the seal he drew up with his blood since he was going to be the one to activate the seal. Anko, Ao, Onoki, and Yamato stayed behind to stall Kaguya and White Zetsu.

With his lips pressed into a thin line, he eyed the remaining survivors with unshed tears. There was nothing to say; everyone had already gone over the semantics of the seal and the aftermath of it all. Genma gave him the idea of devising a seal that would go back in time. The Flying Thunder God seal loosely inspired him since it was also a space-time seal; the user entered a dimensional void where time was invalid and exited into a designated endpoint in an instant. He designed his seal so that the user entered and exited through multiple dimensional voids until he was at least twenty years back in time, somewhere around the Third Great Shinobi War. While Shikamaru wanted him to go further back to the Warring States period to nip the root of the problem, if he tried to go any further, then he risked erasing his entire existence.

The chakra needed to activate the seal was unmeasurable, even when he combined his chakra with Kurama. The remaining survivors came to the decision to give up their chakra for him to use. The sixteen-year-old him would've vehemently denied that option, but he was eighteen now and knew better. He was jaded and broken, paranoid and cynical, bitter and exhausted; he could look beneath the underneath, and he saw how utterly exhausted they looked.

Kakashi smiled at him warmly. His single eye didn't quite close and curve when he smiled as it did when he was still a Genin. "I'm proud of you. Make sure you give me a good slap over the head when I become your teacher again."

"It's probably gonna more troublesome than it's worth, but I could've used a lot more training back then," Shikamaru said with a trembling voice.

He laughed slightly, but it came out as a raspy wheeze. "Don't worry, Kakashi-sensei. You were a great teacher when it mattered. Shikamaru, I just have to throw a bone at you, and you'll train if it means unraveling the puzzle I'll become."

Sai said nothing. He merely walked up to him and hugged him tightly, conveying what his words couldn't. "I'll get you two out of Root. Danzo won't stand a chance." Sai smiled genuinely and released him from the embrace.

Gaara stepped forward to grasp his shoulder. "You changed my life for the better. I know you'll do it again. The younger me would've done at lot better against the Akatsuki if he didn't just focus on his sand."

"We weren't that close when you were younger, huh. I just remember being part of the guard rotation the Third created until you entered the Academy. Well, don't be too much of a brat to younger me," Genma snarked good-naturedly. "Save Hayato, will ya? He didn't deserve what was coming."

"Naruto, don't let Itachi do everything on his own. And make sure I don't become too arrogant." Sasuke said with an undercurrent of regret in his voice.

"Gaara, no need to worry. It won't be too hard to send tiny you a seal so we can be pen pals. And Genma, I guess I'll tone it down, so you only get pranked once a week. It'll be good training for you." To Sasuke, he solemnly replied, "I won't let Itachi damn himself if it's the last thing I do."

He gathered his chakra and sent six chakra chains to his friends. His chains impaled each of them in the abdomen, where their chakra was centered. He braced himself for the influx of chakra and began drawing chakra from Kurama as well. He unraveled the scroll and set it down in front of him, adjusting it slightly so that it aligned with the stars.

 _How much longer until we have enough chakra?_

 **Fifteen minutes at most. I've been saving up chakra for half a year, thinking we would go out fighting Kaguya.**

Shikamaru's lifeless body hit the ground after two minutes. Sai followed at the three-minute mark and Genma joined him. At five minutes, Gaara was dead before he hit the ground. Kakashi managed until six minutes and Sasuke lasted seven minutes. Kaguya arrived at his hiding spot in three minutes with Black Zetsu and the army of White Zetsu trailing behind her. Two White Zetsu were dragging bodies with them. They tossed the mutilated bodies of Anko, Ao, Onoki, and Yamato in front of him. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to gather more chakra.

 _Kurama! With everyone's chakra, I should almost have enough chakra to power the seal! How much more chakra do we have to have?_

 **We still need another five minutes to gather chakra! Damn it! Kaguya isn't just going to sit around and wait for us.**

 _Forget it! It's all or nothing!_

 **Naruto! Your body won't be able to keep up with the rate of chakra you're taking in!**

He ignored Kurama. Blood gushed out from his eyes, ears, and nose and he began coughing up blood. His lungs burned for air, and his limbs began to shake as though it were under enormous pressure. It wasn't an exaggeration that he was probably one of the last few shinobi left. Even if activating the seal would end in a failure, it was a better alternative than getting killed at Kaguya's hand. While Kaguya might not derive any satisfaction from killing him, Black Zetsu definitely would. Given how much of a pest he was in the face of Black Zetsu's plans to revive Kaguya, Black Zetsu was itching to see him dead. Black Zetsu would revel in his death. He wasn't going to let Kaguya kill him when former enemies threw everything at him in hopes of killing him. He was going to die on his terms. He always thought he would die sacrificing himself for another, not unlike how Neji shielded himself for a better future.

 _Kurama, we don't have any more time. I'm going to activate the seal as it is._

 **Idiot! Five minutes of chakra is too big of a margin to forsake!**

 _We don't have that kind of time! If we fail and die, then so be it! It's better than dying at Kaguya's hands!_

Kurama fell silent at that. With a silent prayer to the Sage of Six Paths, he slammed his palm so that it rested on the center of the seal and gritted his teeth when he felt a pull on his navel. His vision went dark, and Kurama's voice was drowned out by the rushing of blood in his ears and an ear-splitting screech that burst his ear drums.

His body deconstructed with every dimensional void he entered and reconstructed with every dimensional void he exited. His body was stripped of the skin and bone, muscle and blood, chakra and pathways. His skin was peeled off in thick flakes, similarly to how Kurama's unstable cloak of chakra tore at his skin. His fingernails and toenails were ripped off from the nailbeds and then his muscles were torn away like string cheese. His blood vessels, nerves, and pathways unraveled from their respective systems. The process was agonizingly painful and not even getting hit by Mei's lava release, or Itachi's Amaterasu could compare.

His vision returned to him and the world cleared so that it wasn't black anymore. The pull of his navel returned, and he found himself screaming his throat raw at the sight of destruction, an unleashed Kurama, and his parents both impaled by Kurama's claw to protect his infant body.


	2. October 10th

Genma gave Naruto the idea of going back in time. It was an off-hand remark; he lamented on how he should've hooked up with more women if he knew the future would've gone to hell. They all knew that the future they were living in didn't have a single chance of getting restored to its former glory. But just because they couldn't do anything to change the present didn't mean they couldn't redo the past.

They were given little hope with the idea to make a seal to travel through time, but it was infinitely better than living without hope at all. They had all lived without an ounce of hope for so long that it felt like a much-appreciated breath of fresh air. Living in constant despair and hopelessness was exhausting, and none of them realized how much it weighed down on them until that weight disappeared.

He and Shikamaru worked tirelessly. Time was something they all took for granted, but now that they were being hunted down by Kaguya and the army of White Zetsu, it became a luxury. Half the time, Naruto and Shikamaru had to be carried by one of the other survivors because they were so sleep-deprived, spending most, if not all, of their time trying to design the seal. It was dangerous, suicidal even, to throw all caution aside and forsake their sleep on a seal that might not even work. But everyone was pushed forward by their losses.

Once the seal was completed, and Naruto drew it out on Sai's last scroll with his blood, the look of utter despair that was present in each of their eyes faded just a bit. There was finally hope for them, even if none of them would live to see it through. Naruto didn't have the heart to tell them of the most likely outcome from activating the scroll. Shikamaru told Naruto that there was a high possibility that he wouldn't be going back to _their_ past, per say, but a parallel world where the differences between the two worlds were minuscule.

What little hope he had managed to gather was ruthlessly crushed by that. Naruto was the one who held on to hope the longest, so when he finally lost his faith, he was overwhelmed by a wave of crushing defeat, hopeless despair, and utter desolation. Even if the seal was successful and he could go back in time, it wouldn't be to _his_ family; Kakashi, Sasuke, Shikamaru, Sai, Gaara, even Genma wouldn't be the same.

* * *

The screeching sound of a wailing baby was what reached his ears. It took Naruto a few moments to realize that _he_ was the wailing annoyance. His throat was raw from screaming, and his face burned with heat from the hot tears that welled up from his eyes. His stomach ached horribly, not unlike the time he drank spoiled milk and spend most of his time in the restroom.

His cries were drowned out by the utter horror at the sight of his parents standing before him, hunched over the claw that impaled both of their abdomens. Blood poured out from their wound, and they were coughing up blood. They wore smiles on their faces, sad but genuine as they accepted their fate. Seeing Kurama, unsealed from Kushina—this wasn't his mother; he didn't have the right to call her that when he stole her son from her—and much smaller than he remembered ever since Minato resealed the Yin half of Kurama inside him was mind-boggling.

Since he didn't gather the necessary amount of chakra to travel back at least twenty years, Naruto figured he would've landed sometime near the end of the Third Great Shinobi War. Missing out on five minutes of chakra didn't seem like too big of a margin. But Naruto forgot that space-time seals were finicky things; they were chakra-sensitive and required a specific amount of chakra to activate. Naruto ended up in the hospital every other day back when he was still learning how to utilize the Flying Thunder God seal; Naruto coughed up puddles of blood from internal bleeding when he didn't pump the seal with enough chakra and ended up with third-degree burns when he overpowered the seal. He couldn't play it safe and practice with shadow clones either because they popped halfway, though, unable to withstand the force of traveling through a dimensional void. Since his seal was meant to travel only through time by using the space between it, underpowering the seal wouldn't do anything while overpowering the seal would throw the activator decades back in time.

If he and Kurama were at full power, they could've pumped the seal with enough chakra to throw them back to the Warring States era. But given that they were constantly at less than half their chakra capacity, they had to make do. The seal could only activate with a certain amount of chakra and then some, hence why he had to drain the last survivors of what little chakra they had left. It was a godsend that Kurama had been storing away chakra for half a year. Otherwise, they never would've been able to activate the seal in the first place.

Even though he acknowledged that he had screwed up with the calculations of how far back in the past he would go in the heat of the moment, Naruto wanted to scream and cry at the injustice. Even when Naruto knew that he was going to a parallel world and that he probably wouldn't go back as far as the beginning of the Second Great Shinobi War, he hoped against all the odds that he could've landed before his parents' death. But seeing them sacrifice themselves for him made him steel his resolve. He couldn't save his parents, but he would travel through hell and back to make sure everyone else survived. His precious people showed him the light, so he would make sure that they didn't go through the same pain he went through. He was going to save them all if it was the last thing he did.

"Naruto! Kaa-chan and Tou-chan love you so much. You know that? I'm sorry we're not going to be able to watch you grow up, but I know you'll become a good man," Kushina said with a trembling smile and watery eyes. "Make sure you eat three meals a day. Don't go becoming a training freak like your deadbeat father here. Don't be afraid to try new things."

"Naruto, make sure you don't cause too much trouble for the Third or Jiraiya-sensei. Cherish the bonds you forge with your friends. Those who break the rules are scum, but those who abandon their friends are even worse than scum. Remember those words and live by them. It was one of the last things my student said."

He choked on his saliva. His tears returned with a vengeance. Minato performed the signs for the Eight Trigrams Seal, but instead of sealing the Yin half of Kurama within himself, he instead sealed it into Naruto. Given that he was an infant, Naruto knew that Tou-san chose to seal the Yin half of Kurama in himself because Naruto's baby body wouldn't have been able to withstand the strain of a full Tailed Beast. Naruto figured that it was a parallel world difference to why Minato decided to seal Kurama into his infant body one-half at a time.

Kurama returned with him so while he did impale Minato and Kushina with one of his claws, that was the action of past-Kurama. When Minato formed the seals for the Eight Trigram Seals, he didn't bother moving other than swishing his nine tails to create an illusion of anger and a thirst for destruction. When Minato completed the signs, he sealed Kurama into Naruto. Kurama's Yin half and Yang half had their chakra merged into one within Naruto. When Kurama's body disappeared, Minato and Kushina collapsed onto the ground.

His abdomen burned with fiery chakra that he knew to be Kurama's. He screeched in pain, sobbing inconsolably. He had no pain tolerance as an infant, and if he had to suffer in pain, everyone around him would suffer from their ears. No one had to know that he cried his heart out for experiencing the loss of his parents for the second time. Kurama knew better than to comment when he was aware that Naruto was mourning for his parents and all the people he lost to reach this point now that he could afford to break down and cry.

* * *

Naruto woke up bundled up in a soft blanket that warmed him up to the bone. He let out a sigh of contentment that came out as a gurgle. Above him, someone chuckled in amusement. When he opened his eyes, the sight of the polished wooden bars belonging to an old crib was what greeted Naruto. Hovering over the crib was the Third, looking at him with warm eyes and a serene smile. At a closer look, there was an undercurrent of sorrow that he didn't mask; there wasn't any need for the Third to remain firm in front of an infant like he had to before the village.

 _Kurama? Are you awake in there?_

There wasn't an answer for a few minutes. And then a familiar groan rumbled in Naruto's mindscape. **I feel like Madara used me to fight against Hashirama again. Fucking Minato. If he was going to seal all of me, he should've just done it all together.**

Naruto laughed, both in his mindscape and out loud. _It was probably because you were a dick before we came here._

Kurama didn't bother replying to that. Naruto didn't blame him. The least he could do was let Kurama sleep in peace. When Tou-san had sealed the Yin half of Kurama within him in the past—or was it the future now that they were both back in the past?—Kurama and Naruto were more in sync with each other. Naruto used the key to unlock the seal, and that allowed a greater influx of Kurama's chakra into his system. Ever since he was a kid, Kurama had also been leaking his chakra through the kinks in the seal into Naruto for years so that he could eventually influence Naruto and manipulate him into undoing the seal. Since Naruto had reverted to infanthood, he didn't have as much of immunity to Kurama or his corrosive chakra. It was only because of the Uzumaki blood within him that he was chosen to be Kurama's host. That and there wasn't anyone else who could be Kurama's host instead of himself.

When Jiji began rocking him back and forth, Naruto felt a wave of sleepiness overcome him. He let out an unhappy gurgle he meant to be a whine. He didn't want to sleep, not when he finally got to see Jiji again. It was one thing to see Jiji, dead but revived by the Second's damnable forbidden jutsu. Seeing Jiji considerably younger and with fewer wrinkles, than he was used to was mind-boggling. It reminded Naruto that he was in the past, that he was going to change everything for the better.

"Naruto, it's time for you to sleep," Jiji said with warm affection. Naruto stubbornly puffed up his cheeks. Jiji laughed and chalked up his reaction to Jiji's rocking. It was an unspoken rule that all babies grew sleepy when someone gently rocked them back and forth. Even if Jiji was known as the Professor, not even he would've expected Naruto to understand his words. There _was_ a limit to child prodigies, and they didn't start straight from infanthood; their brains still needed time to develop.

 **Just suck it up and go to sleep, brat. You're a baby now. If you don't get enough sleep, you're just going to fuck up your development.**

 _The villagers already stunted my growth when I was a kid,_ Naruto argued mulishly.

Naruto could practically sense Kurama roll his eyes in annoyance. **And that was when you were like, what? Five? Six? You're a baby right now.**

Naruto couldn't argue with Kurama's sound logic. For all that he was a Tailed-Beast, he spent over seven decades sealed away first in Mito, and then his mother. He was bound to have picked up things from them. Naruto only hoped that Kurama didn't spend most of his time in rage or sleeping. Mito was bound to be a goldmine of information when it came to sealing and was the one who founded medical ninjutsu. His mother had special chakra she could infuse into her chakra chains, which was why the village and her clan chose her to be the next host. Naruto wanted to try his hand at medical ninjutsu and learn how to use his chakra chains in a more versatile manner.

 **Focus on being a baby, and then I'll think about teaching you your legacy.**

 _I thought you would've just screamed at Mito and Kaa-chan about how you're going to tear them to shreds and eat their entire family._

 **I might be petty, but not even I would ignore a golden opportunity to look through their memories. They** _ **did**_ **manage to seal me away. Of course, I would've looked through their memories. I didn't want to get sealed away again.**

 _You said something reasonable for once!_

 **Shut it, brat. Just go to sleep,** Kurama grumbled. **By the way, you do remember that you're going to have to relearn** _ **everything,**_ **right? Good luck with that.**

 _Fuck!_


	3. The Naruto Protection Squad

According to the laws of the universe, while traveling through space and time was proven possible by the Fourth Hokage, it was impossible for two of the same entities to exist in the same timeline. Therefore, when Naruto initially designed his seal, he intended to travel at least twenty years in the past. It was just a few years before his birth, which allowed him to still exist in that period of time. Since Uzumaki Naruto already existed in the world, the universe would have to alter the soul of the original Uzumaki Naruto so that two of the same entities didn't exist at the same time.

The possibilities to how the original "Uzumaki Naruto" of the parallel universe would be altered was almost infinite. Red hair instead of blond hair, a mild temperament instead of a hotheaded temperament, a child prodigy instead of the dead last, Alternate Naruto could embody the opposite of everything he was. Because Naruto had traveled to a parallel universe, Alternate Naruto might not even have to be altered in the first place because the differences in the world already ensured that Alternate Naruto was a separate entity from himself.

However, because Naruto didn't pour enough chakra into the seal to travel back at least twenty years, the seal didn't function properly. The seal was revised after Shikamaru and Kakashi reviewed it so that when Naruto activated the seal, both his body and soul would be sent back. There wasn't any point to going back in time if Naruto was dropped into the past and his soul bonded to the most compatible body there since he still wouldn't be capable of the feats Naruto was. It was only his soul that traveled through time and space, hence why he was subjected to the sensation of his body being reconstructed and deconstructed repeatedly until he was taken to the Kyuubi Attack, as it was named in the history books.

The alternate version of himself was already born but even still, there wasn't any other compatible body his soul could enter. The universe still couldn't allow two of the same entities to exist at the same time so when his soul entered his alternate self's body, their souls battled for dominance. It was a given that he won control of their body. Unlike how the body aged by the years, a soul aged by maturity and experience. Naruto's soul was battle-hardened, war-weary, and jaded, a far-cry from the infantile and innocent soul of his alternate self. It was tragic that he robbed away his alternate self's future, but he was selfish.

Years of war could change anyone, and not even Naruto was exempt from that. It took two years for him to change but the change in himself was irrevocable and affected everyone around him. He lost his innocent naivety, grew more cynical of the world, became jaded and paranoid. He learned the hard way that he couldn't save everyone no matter how hard he tried and how strong he was; there was always going to be a time where he was simply too late. While he was willing to die for his friends and by extension, the people they also cared for, he wouldn't die for people he was unfamiliar with anymore; he wouldn't sacrifice himself for the unrepentant shinobi who refused to acknowledge their wrongdoings to him.

He was guilty that he robbed his alternate self's chance for a future, but he would do it again if it meant that he could save his family. Naruto would like to think that his alternate self wouldn't mind, but he wouldn't delude himself into thinking that. He couldn't know that and never would. He would simply carry the guilt of stealing someone else's future. He didn't deserve forgiveness for what he had done, even if he was another version of his victim. He wasn't going to justify his actions because regardless of his reasons for doing so, he didn't change the fact that he stole someone else's body from them. Naruto was no better than Orochimaru for that.

When Naruto woke up, it was around three in the morning judging by his internal clock—his telling of time grew more accurate out of necessity once war broke out and more so when he was forced on the run. His eyes were slightly gritty with sleeping sand in the corners of his eyes. It irritated his sensitive skin and he let out a pitiful whine as he tried to rub it out. His mouth was dry and felt like sandpaper and his stomach was emptier than his arsenal of jutsu during his Genin days. Overwhelmed by sudden irritation and the need for food and water, he let out a wail. Ironically, Naruto screeched even louder because of how ear-splitting his cries sounded even to his own, still developing ears.

Naruto could sense at least four ANBU flittering in and out of his drastically shrinking range of sensing. Some didn't bother to mute their chakra signature because they were within the village and it was a time of peace, not to mention that Naruto was a baby. However, the majority were too accustomed to doing exactly that. He could rival the Byakugan with his range of sensing when he was in optimal condition but now that he was a baby, he could just barely reach his senses out to ten feet; even then, he could only manage that much with the combination of his own sensing ability and Kurama's ability to sense any malice. It helped that he was naturally a Sensor-Nin and Karin had forced Naruto to drain all the chakra she had left in her body before anyone else could take advantage of it—a gift to the man who could have been the prince of Uzishiogakure that never fell.

His eyes watered involuntarily because—damn it, he just lost his parents the night before! He wasn't ready for the onslaught of emotions that overwhelmed him like a broken dam. There was so much potent malice that the villagers were directing at him. Even if he had to retrain his sensing skills, Kurama's special sensory ability was at full throttle since he only lost a handful of years out of the centuries that he had already lived out. More than half of the entire civilian population loathed him so much that they were letting out the smallest silver of killing intent, the most that the average civilian could deal out. But sensing all that miniscule killing intent at once triggered a flashback for him. 

" _Why do you get to live while the Fourth is dead?"_

 _Naruto was six when he was roughly shoved out of the way by a woman. She was paler than the average villager, with short, dirty blond hair and dark green eyes. She wore a lavender qipao with three red circles that were vertically aligned on her skirt. She looked at him with a nasty frown on her face, as though he was less than the dirt on her shoe._

" _If you weren't born, the Fourth would've never died in the first place," she spat. She looked like she wanted to beat the life out of him but refrained from doing so. Her fists were clenched and the longer Naruto stared at her, the redder her face became._

" _Don't look at me like that, Demon!" she snarled angrily and she jerked her body away from him, not wanting to stand in his presence any longer. Her bag of groceries teared at her sudden movement and her food fell to the ground. With an angry growl and huff of frustration, she began to gather her food from the ground._

 _Naruto remembered the lesson of manners that Jiji had drilled into him. He picked up the three apples that the woman missed and handed them to her when she stood up. She sharply turned her head at him and kicked him in the stomach and away from her._

" _Stay away from me, you monster!" she screeched. She eyed the apples that he dropped critically and smashed all three under her foot with vindictive glee. She kicked Naruto three more times, twice at his head and a third at his stomach. He let out a wheeze and began coughing uncontrollably. She didn't hold back with her kicks at all._

 _The smell of blood hit his nose and Naruto realized that his nose was bleeding profusely and so was his head. There were black spots in his vision and his head ached like nothing else. Right before the woman walked away, she spat in his face and said in a dark tone, "Just die, you freak. You would be doing the world a favor if you just drop dead."_

Tears pricked at his eyes and grew into a river of tears. He sniffed pitifully and whimpered quietly. He shifted left and right in his crib and shoved his fist into his mouth to muffle his cries. One of the ANBU concealed in the ceiling of the room dropped down and walked to his crib. He was lifted in the air and tucked in the crook of an ANBU with a dog mask. His eyes widened in disbelief when he registered his chakra signature to be Kakashi's and his heart swelled with warmth.

Kakashi prodded his finger at Naruto's fist, trying to pry it out of his mouth. Naruto obliged easily and gave him a toothless smile. Kakashi's mere presence was enough to chase his demons away. He whipped out a plastic bottle of baby formula and pried off the lid to it so that Naruto could gnaw at the bottle nipple with his toothless gums. He let out a happy giggle when Kakashi held the bottle near his mouth and began to suck on the bottle nipple.

It was a humiliating experience to be reduced to a mere infant so severely dependent on the care of others, but it was one he would soldier through, nonetheless. That it was Kakashi who was looking after him at the moment was a major plus which made the situation all the more bearable. There wasn't much Naruto could do as an infant, so he spent most of his time tormenting anyone put on the glorified babysitting duty.

Only Kakashi was left untouched by the terrifying force that Naruto could be as an infant when he really put his mind to it. It was great entertainment after a few weeks, having sensed the sheer dread that the ANBU began to emit. When Genma was put on rotation to guard him, Naruto was gracious enough to spare Genma from his usual tactics as thanks to the man who was overlooked by many in the future-past yet was invaluable in his help to Naruto. It was absolutely hilarious to sense the smugness that Genma radiated for a full week, rubbing it in other ANBU's faces that he was apparently initiated into what the ANBU were cheekily calling the "Naruto Protection Squad".

It wasn't helped by the fact that Kakashi and Genma were fiercely overprotective of Naruto and were completely wrapped around his finger. A single toothless smile had Kakashi glowing with silent joy while a gurgling laugh filled Genma with pride. It didn't take long for Kakashi and Genma to start competing to be Naruto's favorite. It was mind-bobbling to wrap his head around, but he chalked it up to their own devotion to his dad, given that Kakashi was his last surviving student and Genma was part of the squad tasked with guarding him. Plus, Kakashi and Genma always had an odd rivalry between them that wasn't widely known, but mainly threw pointed jabs and cheeky sass at each other.

Naruto couldn't wait to learn how to speak again so he could put the both of them on a crusade to gut Gai-sensei when he made his first word "Youth!"


End file.
